Escapers 'given passports by French'

By David Rennie in Washington

12:01AM BST 07 May 2003

Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, said yesterday he would investigate a report that the French embassy in Damascus supplied passports to former members of the Iraqi regime, helping them to escape to Europe.

The French embassy in Washington angrily denied the allegation, which appeared in the Washington Times and was attributed to US intelligence sources.

"There is not one Iraqi official in Europe thanks to France," said an embassy spokesman, Nathalie Loiseau. Earlier she told the Washington Times that French authorities had not issued visas to any former Iraqi officials since the beginning of the war.

The newspaper did not specify whether the passports were granted to Iraqi citizens or Iraqi officials who already held French nationality, nor did it specify when they were issued.

It quoted one Bush administration official as saying: "It's like Raoul Wallenberg in reverse. Now you have the French helping the bad guys escape from us."